Don't You Hate It When...

Good morrow, fair gentles! It's been a few weeks, but what can I say? I'm busy - a brotha's got a whole lot of nothing to do, and it sure as hell isn't going to do itself. I've had trouble thinking of what to share with you blogomaniacs next, but then this morning, I found that my cup ranneth over with new ideas. Take THAT, writer's block!

So anyways, recently, I've found myself noticing and hoarding a boatload of everyday occurrences around me that quietly drive me up a wall. What are some of these things? I'm glad you asked! Here's a series of observational questions that I have for you all:

Don't you hate it when...
- You and your merry band of cronies are sitting around the university student center, shooting the breeze, when various reporters from the local news station and newspaper come to you asking questions about your feelings on the head football coach's DWI arrest the previous night? Actually, that part isn't so annoying - here's your opportunity to shine in front of a TV audience! The annoyance comes from seeing your quotes bastardized on TV and in print to not even include your best quotes. They keep the boring stuff - "It's unfortunate, you don't want to see this happen to your coach, etc"- but your "at least he didn't cover up a sex......... abuse......... scandal. Oh wait, is that too soon?" comment doesn't see the light of day. Hard for you to become a viral sensation when the local media is cutting your legs out from underneath you. How is the outside world going to gain access to your patented, delightfully sarcastic brand of whimsy when your best material is back on the station's cutting room floor? Lighten up, media.

Don't you hate it when...
- The earphone jack on your iPod completely craps out on you for no reason one day? If you're like me, you're used to your everyday life having a running soundtrack, and when it suddenly doesn't, the adjustment is not a simple one. Now you find yourself balls deep in a sea of people, most of which have this unbelievably irritating habit of talking to you. Sure, your iPod has speakers on it, but having a functional headphone jack allows you to circumvent that embarrassing question of "Who's the McAsshole blasting his music so loudly?" without having to out yourself and your deep-abiding love for Aaron Carter. And by "Aaron Carter," you meant Nickelback.

Don't you hate it when...
- The only times that Travel Channel plays "Man vs Food" marathons are when you're lying in your bed, dying of starvation? You want to swat away the flies and shoo away the vultures conversing outside of your room in order to get to the kitchen, but you just know you're going to be met with that same grave disappointment from lack of food that you always are. You've never seen cabinets so bereft of nourishment. "Man vs Food" has this sneaky way of making every kind of food on the planet seem appetizing while you're watching it. Last night, you probably found yourself having to stave off the advances of a sudden urge for a vegetable medley. On an unrelated note, you've always hated vegetables. But hell, you'd be willing to bet that even a vegetarian farmer would take out one of his sheep execution-style for a shot at a nice lamp chop after watching that show for hours on end...


Don't you hate it when...
- You're at home, feeling super DUPER parched, and yak urine just won't do the trick. (You're also out of oxen piss, as in your days on the frontier of the Oregon Trail, you tried to ford the river and your damn oxen died). So you go into the kitchen, open the cabinet, and immediately meeting your eyes is that package of kool-aid that you've been saving for just such an occasion. Your dump the packets into the pitcher and then return to the cabinets to find that - GASP! - you're FRESH out of sugar. Your house couldn't contain any less sugar. This issue has been coming up for years, but you always seem to forget to buy enough sugar to last through the packets of kool-aid that you buy. You've hit the point of no return because you sure as hell aren't drinking non-sweet kool-aid, and brown sugar isn't a suitable alternative. Congratulations you clown, you're now throwing the kool-aid mix away because you certainly learned your lesson after that one ill-fated adventure from your childhood when you finally found out that salt & sugar just LOOK the same...

Don't you hate it when...
- Your girlfriend sleeps with ANOTHER guy? SO WHAT if it's her husband? Has she NO respect for the sanctity and integrity of the adulterous booty call relationship? Is NOTHING sacred?

Don't you hate it when...
- You can't have your cake and eat it too? What is that about? It's YOUR fucking cake! We live in a day and age when it's somehow encouraged AND frowned upon to be out there, sewing your wild oats somewhat indiscriminately. On the one hand, they're your oats with which to do what and whomever you please. On the other hand, sewing oats requires being outside, and you're not crazy about being outside. Also, from a distance, sewing oats and picking cotton look vaguely similar, and your darker-skinned ancestry swore that nonsense off in the mid-1800s. Around 1865, to be specific.

Don't you hate it when...
- Your favorite pro football team thinks that the best way to ascend back to national relevance is to start the season 0-7? The average NFL season includes 16 games, and they've won 2 in a row since that glorious run of futility to kick off this season's campaign, but the odds of making the playoffs from here are slim to none. For those first seven losses, you watched your squad deftly dodge wins week in and week out, each new game bringing a new opportunity to see just how they might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Things have turned around somewhat, but you'll never forget the magic of those first 7 games. You ignore these last two wins and hone in on the positive: while it's not IMPOSSIBLE that your team goes to the playoffs at this point, your team certainly isn't going to the playoffs at this point.

Don't you hate it when...
- The NBA locks out its players and a month after the season should have started, it's looking more and more like there will be no basketball this season at all? You don't even have any sorta follow-up joke for this, you're just bitter.

Don't you hate it when...
- You have no milk for your cereal? Or no cereal for your milk? Having milk without cereal can be doubly disastrous sometimes, because in anticipation of eventually getting new cereal, you'll just let that milk sit in the fridge for much longer than you should. That next week, when you crack open that gallon of milk to use in your Hamburger Helper, you realize that it's spoiled. Unfortunately, you don't realize this until after you pour the custardy, yogurt-like milk into the pan full of ground beef. Congratulations, you're about to have sleep for dinner.

If you have a roommate, they'll jokingly help you replace the wasted Hamburger Helper with an off-brand version from a local grocery store, something called a "Panburger Partner." You comb the aisles of the store looking for the mythical "panburger" ingredient for this exotic dish, but it's nowhere to be found. What part of the cow does that even come from? Eventually, you realize that the joke is on you, because "panburger" is just Spanish for "cow feces."

Don't you hate it when...
- You have a friend that you think you'd like to get to know better, but then you spend more time with them and realize that you may or may not like this person that much? Are they too opinionated? Too quick to correct people? Too hypocritical? Too self-absorbed? Too much of a cock-block? A jersey-chaser? Asian? Black? Blind? Joe Paterno? You guys smell what I'm cooking. Sometimes, it's best when someone is just your friend in theory instead of reality.

*******

Well kids, let's call it a night. I've enjoyed our time together here today. If anyone has any questions, comments, or suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Catch me on twitter at @MrWilliams88 or email at Gsuswalks88@gmail.com. Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams, signing off...

Y'all stay classy out there and take care.